More than a few people who attended seemed skeptical that prayer would end the drought.
Lance Warner, 22, a history student at Georgia State University, smirked as members of the crowd stretched their arms to the heavens and cried "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!"
"You couldn't make this up," he said. "You can't make up for years of water mismanagement with a prayer session. It's lunacy!"
About a block way, more than 20 protesters -- some carrying placards saying "All hail Sonny Perdue" and "Is it raining yet?" -- joined a rally organized by the Atlanta Freethought Society. The vigil, they said, violated the principle of separation of church and state.
"The governor is exceeding his constitutional authority," said Ed Buckner, an atheist and treasurer of the group. "He has no right to set up prayer services on behalf of the people of Georgia, particularly not on the grounds of the state Capitol."
As the state's drought has intensified, Perdue, a Baptist, has repeatedly urged Georgians to pray for rain. In June, he prayed for rain in Macon as part of the Georgia Farm Bureau's day of prayer for agriculture.
Perdue is not the first Georgia governor to pray for an end to drought. In 1986, Gov. Joe Frank Harris joined hundreds of worshipers at Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta to pray for rain.
More than 20 years later, however, a significant number of Georgians appear to be uncomfortable with such prayers. Throughout the day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's blog filled with recriminations from readers who said Perdue should plan, rather than pray.
"God is not an ATM machine you can go to and get whatever you need whenever you ask for it," said one reader. "Stop developing, seed the clouds, think of some other useful solution." Another said: "I'm praying for a new GOVERNOR!!!!!"
Gil Rogers, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said he worried that hoping for miracles could detract from more practical efforts to conserve water.
"We shouldn't look at it as 'Once the rains come we'll be fine,' " he said. "We'd all like to see rain, but this doesn't get us any closer to sustaining water management in Georgia."
But Rogers could find one point of agreement with Perdue.
"If he's saying that Georgians are wasteful, we certainly agree," he said. "I hope he is truly sorry we've been so wasteful. . . . If you look at the way Georgia is growing -- paving over 50 acres a day in the Atlanta area, choking out streams and cutting down forests, we've got a long way to go."
jenny.jarvie@latimes.com
